Tennessee's energy production

Summary: Tennessee’s energy needs have been met primarily by the federally managed Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) through a mix of hydroelectric, nuclear, natural gas–fired generating plants, and coal-fired power plants, complemented by an increasing renewable energy portfolio.

Tennessee’s energy geography is almost synonymous with the state’s largest generator of energy, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The TVA was established in 1933, when President Franklin D. Rooseveltsigned the Tennessee Valley Authority Act. The goal of the TVA was to address economic development, flood control, and electricity generation within the underdeveloped Tennessee Valley, which was hit hard by the Great Depression. As a public agency, the TVA was granted sole authority for power generation, transmission, and distribution as a publicly owned utility, partly as a reaction to the costs of electricity provided by private utilities. The TVA was one of the first government agencies specializing in hydroelectric power, and hydroelectric power generation remains a key component of the TVA’s energy resource portfolio.

In the 1940s, TVA led growth in hydroelectric power to support the need for aluminum during World War II. During this time, TVA operated many hydroelectric plants and built the Fontana Dam. By the early 1950s, TVA had become the largest electricity company in the United States, and demand for electricity boomed after the end of the war. To meet the growing demand, TVA could no longer rely solely on hydroelectric power and began operating coal-fired and nuclear power plants. In the 2020s, TVA owned more than 90 percent of the state’s generation capacity, serving millions of people in seven states. The TVA maintained twenty-nine hydroelectric dams, four coal-fired plants, three nuclear power plants (one located in Alabama), eighty-seven combustion turbine sites, and nine solar energy plants. In 2009, the TVA generated 46 percent of its capacity from coal-fired power plants, 32 percent from nuclear power plants, 7 percent from hydroelectric plants, and 2 percent from natural gas, oil, diesel, or renewable energy sources; it purchased 13 percent of its power. By 2020, TVA's generation portfolio was 42 percent nuclear, 28 percent natural gas, 15 percent coal, 12 percent hydro, and 3 percent wind and solar.

Production and Consumption

Tennessee is a leading consumer of energy by the residential sector. The state is one of the highest producers of hydroelectric power east of the Mississippi River. Tennessee has several hydroelectric power plants along the Tennessee River and Cumberland River systems. A leader in nuclear power generation, Tennessee also has two nuclear power plants in the state, both operated by the TVA: the Sequoyah plant in Hamilton County and the Watts Bar plant in Rhea County. The Watts Bar Nuclear Power Station began operation in 1996. A second reactor unit at the Watts Bar plant was completed in 2015 and began operations in 2016, becoming the first new nuclear power reactor in the United States to begin operations in the twenty-first century.

In 2022, Tennessee ranked twenty-first in net generation of electricity in the United States with more than 78 million megawatt hours. It also ranked eleventh in total retail sales of energy. Similar to other southern states, Tennessee experienced high energy consumption during the summer for air-conditioning use, and more than half of the state’s households used electricity as the primary form of home heating.

Fossil Fuel Imports

The electricity generated from coal sources in Tennessee comes from other states, as it has only minor reserves located in the state’s northeastern Appalachian region. Tennessee’s estimated reserves of recoverable coal comprise less than 0.1 percent of the national total. Tennessee consumes twenty times more coal than it produces. The coal used in its plants is generally shipped by rail or brought by river barge from Wyoming, Illinois, and Kentucky. Some industrial facilities in the state use coal from Virginia and Kentucky. Crude oil arrives at the state’s sole refinery in Memphis along the Capline Pipeline on its path from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest. Petroleum products also arrive in Tennessee from branches of the Colonial and Plantation Pipelines, as well as from shipments carried along the Mississippi River. Tennessee is also the largest ethanol-producing state in the southeastern United States. With its two ethanol plants, Tennessee ranks fourteenth in the United States in terms of ethanol production.

Renewables

The state’s renewable energy is almost entirely produced by conventional hydropower (90 percent). Municipal solid waste and landfill gas, wind power, and other forms of biomass also contributed a very small percentage of renewable energy power. Tennessee has a sizable conventional hydroelectric capacity. In 2022, solar photovoltaic facilities accounted for approximately 7 percent of the state’s renewable generation.

TVA operates a three-turbine wind farm at Buffalo Mountain, which began with a capacity of 2 megawatts in 2000 and has expanded to 29 megawatts. The TVA purchases additional wind power from outside the state; the TVA has nine contracts with nine wind farms, mostly in the Midwest. TVA also maintains fifteen solar energy sites, one digester-gas site, and one biomass cofiring site. The TVA has been decommissioning some of its oldest coal-fired units and making efforts to improve energy efficiency and expand its renewable energy production.

Bibliography

Dewan, Shaila. “Metal Levels Found High in Tributary After Spill.” The New York Times, January 1, 2009.

Dewan, Shaila. “Tennessee Ash Flood Larger Than Initial Estimate.” The New York Times, December 26, 2008.

“Energy.” Tennesse Valley Authority, www.tva.com/annual-report-fy20/energy. Accessed 12 Aug. 2024.

"Tennessee." US Energy Information Administration, 21 Sept. 2023, www.eia.gov/state/?sid=TN. Accessed 12 Aug. 2024.